This is Just the Beginning

This is a sermon that I preached on Sunday, 1/12/24, at Berkeley Friends Church. The scripture reading for this sermon was: Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-23a. You can listen to the audio, or keeping scrolling to read my manuscript. (The spoken sermon differs from the written text.)

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We’re just coming out of the Advent season, and so we’ve been hearing a lot about John the Baptist. John was the last and greatest prophet of the Old Covenant. He was Elijah, paving the way for the coming of the Messiah. A lot of his work was prefigurative: his ministry revealed realities that weren’t quite present yet. John gave people a clue about what was coming, even though he could not fully reveal what was coming. That complete revelation would have to wait until the arrival of the Messiah.

This is why John the Baptist said that his baptism with water was just a placeholder: The real baptism that was to come, the Messiah’s baptism would be of the Holy Spirit and fire.

So what was John up to out in the wilderness beyond the Jordan? It says that he challenged and encouraged people. He taught people. He proclaimed the good news to them. And what was the good news at that point before the Messiah came? What was the good news? What was the gospel? Well, the gospel was: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near.”

And we’re reading from the book of Luke this morning, and I want to stick with Luke’s version of the gospel, but I just want to mention that in the Gospel according to Matthew, when Jesus begins his ministry, the first thing he does is to proclaim the gospel message. And it’s the same message as John the Baptist. Jesus says, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”

So Jesus is following in the footsteps of John the Baptist. We’re supposed to understand from the story that Jesus is Elisha following the footsteps of the prophet Elijah. Like Elisha, he’s been given a double portion of the Spirit that Elijah (that is, John) had. And it’s this Spirit that is the heart of everything. In a very important sense, the Spirit is the gospel, the Victory Announcement of God, the Kingdom come near.

Luke says that as Jesus was gathered together with the other people who had been baptized in the River Jordan the heavens were opened. The Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in bodily form, like a dove. And there was a voice from heaven that said, “You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

And the line that comes right after this in the third chapter of Luke – the line that comes right after Jesus being baptized with water and receiving the Holy Spirit that John the Baptist promised would come as a part of the new reign of God in the Messiah – the next thing that it says is: “Jesus was about 30 years old when he began his work.”

Now it goes on from there to give a genealogy of Jesus, and then to follow him into the deep desert where he fasted for 40 days and nights and did battle with the devil. But I really want to pay attention to this line that I think is often overlooked in between the baptism scene and the temptation in the desert. Luke says that Jesus was about 30 years old when he began his work.

It’s clear from context that Luke considered the beginning of Jesus’ work, the beginning of his ministry, the beginning of his service, to be the moment when he received the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, like a dove, and that was the turning point. That was the beginning. That was when his work began.

With this in mind, I want to turn to our passage from the 8th chapter of the book of Acts, which is also written, we believe, by the same author of the Gospel of Luke. So it’s all one story. It’s cohesive. And in the 8th chapter of Acts it says that the apostles at Jerusalem — and remember the whole church was based in Jerusalem at that point, that’s where things were happening — the apostles of Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God. 

Now don’t forget, the Samaritans are an enemy people for the Jews, right? The church is Jewish at this point. All the Christians are Jews at that point. And so the apostles, the Jewish Christian apostles at Jerusalem, hear that Samaria has accepted the word of God. They’ve heard that their ancient nemesis, the Samaritans, have accepted the gospel.

So the church in Jerusalem sends Peter and John to Samaria, to go check things out and see what’s going on. And when they get down there, they find a new community of Jesus followers, people who have come to believe in the gospel and the story about Jesus and the truth of who Jesus is. They find that a new community like that has emerged among the Samaritans.

But it seems that Peter and John find that there’s something incomplete here. Because they don’t just report back to the church in Jerusalem and say, “Hey, there’s another church in Samaria and they believe the same stuff we do. Hooray!” No, for some reason or another, Peter and John felt like they needed to intervene in this new community, to make it whole. And what was that work of ministry? It says that they laid hands on the church in Samaria. 

Why did Peter and John do that? Why would they feel like they needed to lay hands on the new Christians in Samaria? The text doesn’t directly tell us why, but it does describe what happens as a result. Luke says that when Peter and John placed their hands on the believers in Samaria, this new community of Jesus followers received the Holy Spirit.

This is really interesting because something we’re learning from this passage is that it is possible for people to believe in Jesus, believe in the message about Jesus, believe in the Gospel, and even come together as a community around this faith. It’s possible for this community to emerge and yet be missing something essential. Samaria, as far as we can tell, had all the right ideas. Not only did they have the right ideas, but they had the right intention. They wanted to be part of the church. They wanted to follow Jesus. They wanted to do the right thing. But for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit hadn’t fallen upon them yet.

And this reminds me, this takes me back to the ministry of John the Baptist, out beyond the River Jordan in the wilderness. It reminds me of how John was the greatest of the prophets of the Old Testament, and yet he was eclipsed by what God was doing in Jesus – through the power of the Holy Spirit that marked Jesus’ arrival in ministry.

John the Baptist and his disciples out beyond the river were doing what God wanted them to do. John was a holy and righteous man, but something was missing. Something hadn’t quite come together yet. John and his disciples had to wait for the fullness of God’s promise.

It seems like the church that emerged in Samaria found itself in a very similar position to John and his disciples who were waiting on the coming of the Messiah. Except now, instead of waiting on Jesus to show up in the form of a man, they were instead waiting for Jesus to show up in the form of Spirit-filled disciples – in this case, Peter and John. They were waiting to have hands laid on them. They were waiting to receive the Holy Spirit that would transform their lives and make them a part of the organic body of Jesus.

As Jesus says in the Gospel of John, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” And this is what the early church experienced—they were, through the Holy Spirit, organically connected to Jesus. They had become part of Jesus. They were one with Jesus. Jesus lived in them and they lived in Jesus.

And when Peter and John came to the disciples in Samaria, who only had the baptism of water, they only had the beliefs and the intention to follow. Peter and John helped midwife the coming of the Holy Spirit that would make them not just believers in Jesus, not just people who intended to follow Jesus, but people who were profoundly, organically integrated into the life of Jesus as a body and become one body with the church that already existed in Jerusalem. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, they become one people, one church, one experience of Christ’s life in them.

After Jesus received the Holy Spirit by the River Jordan, Luke says that Jesus was about 30 years old when he began his work. Before that, what was he doing? We’re told he was a carpenter. And we know that he was keenly aware of the things of God – after all, his mother found him in the Temple at age twelve, discussing theology with the wisest men of Israel. Jesus knew the faith! But Luke says that before the coming of the Holy Spirit he had not yet begun his work. He had not yet begun the ministry that God had sent him in the world to do.

In the same way, in the book of Acts on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came and fell on the early church in Jerusalem, that was the beginning of their work. That was when they became not just followers of Jesus, not just disciples of Jesus, but a part of Jesus – part of his body, part of his work. That was when they began partaking in his nature and his ministry.

In the same way for the church at Samaria, they had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They had come to believe that the gospel is true. They had learned to repent because the Kingdom of God had drawn near. But then Peter and John came and laid hands on them and the Holy Spirit came and fell on them and filled them and changed them. The Spirit connected them with the life of God in Jesus Christ, and their work began at that moment. They were no longer merely believers, no longer just admirers of Jesus; they had become participants — an organic unity with the church in Jerusalem and with Jesus himself.

This is really important, because I believe that a lot of us here have received the Holy Spirit. And for those of us who have, I want to remind us that when we receive the Holy Spirit, when we become connected with Jesus as vine and branches, when we begin to partake of the divine nature and become one with him through the Holy Spirit, this is not an ending, this is a beginning. This is the beginning of our work. This is the beginning of our ministry in Him.

A lot of the church gets this twisted and thinks that the main goal of the Christian faith is to get people to have the right beliefs about Jesus and to intend to follow him. Maybe at the maximum, we think that Christians should receive the Holy Spirit and feel connected to God in Christ. That’s often seen as the endpoint. But the message for us this morning is that belief in the right things and intention to do the right things is just the beginning of the journey. In fact, it’s a precursor to the beginning – a prologue. The real beginning of our work and our life in Christ is when we receive the Holy Spirit.

So for those of us who have had this experience – if we have received the Holy Spirit, if we are connected to the life of God in Jesus Christ – I want to challenge us that our work has just begun. We are called to ministry. We are called to serve others. It is no longer about what we want or we need. It is about how we can participate in the ministry of Jesus, how we can bring life and blessing and peace to the people around us. For those of us who have received the Holy Spirit, we are called to be more like Peter and John: When we hear that there’s a need, we’re called to go and act as vessels of the Holy Spirit.

There’s a great temptation in the church to see the Christian journey as an exercise in personal improvement and self-actualization. It’s often implied that the life of a Christian is somehow about me, and about you, and about our lives being better. And don’t get me wrong: There is no greater joy and no greater calling than to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be alive in Jesus and walking with him in this world. 

But the Christian faith is not a path of self-help and personal advancement. It’s not even about becoming “a better person” in some abstract sense. The way of Jesus is mission-oriented. It is a path of service, a path of laying down our lives for others. It’s a path of laying hands on those who need to receive the Holy Spirit, who need to receive healing, who need to receive life. We’re here to pour out our lives for the people around us, especially strangers and enemies. We’re here to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this world.

That’s what it means to be filled by the Holy Spirit: To be baptized into the same bold, courageous, and self-denying ministry that Jesus demonstrated to us in his own life on earth. This isn’t an easy path, but it’s the way of salvation. The Holy Spirit fills us with power, because we need it.

Now, it’s possible that some of us here are thinking, “You know, I’m not sure I have had this experience of God. I’m not sure I have been filled with the Holy Spirit.” And that’s OK. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. The church at Samaria believed the right things and had the right intention but for a while they just weren’t having the experience of organic communion and intimacy with God that the gospel promises. I honestly don’t understand why it wasn’t happening for them until Peter and John came down and laid hands on them, but for whatever reason it didn’t.

But if there are those of us here who are thinking, “You know, I don’t relate to this. I don’t know what it means for the Holy Spirit to fall on me. What is that?” Those of us in this situation, I want to encourage you that God intends this for you. The Holy Spirit is available to you, and not just in an abstract sense: The Holy Spirit is available to you specifically in this community, Berkeley Friends Church. This is a community where Jesus is Lord and Jesus is present in us and among us. He’s here. And the Holy Spirit is here.

As we enter into a time of waiting worship, where we still our minds, and open our hearts, and welcome the voice of God, I want to encourage those of us who do feel like we have had an experience of the Holy Spirit to open ourselves up to that experience again. Let’s ask God: “What work do you have for me to do? Whose lives am I positioned to bless? Who needs hands laid on them? God, please give me the courage to do that work that you’re calling me to do—the work of Jesus in the world.”

And for those of us who do not feel like we’ve had that experience with the Holy Spirit, I want to invite you to ask for it. I want to invite you to take this time in the silence to invite God to pour out the Holy Spirit on you. And if it feels most right to you to do this on your own, sitting there in the pew, that’s great. God will meet you there. But if you would like those of us in this church, those of us who have received the Holy Spirit to lay our hands on you and pray for you, we will do that too – either now or at another time.

So let’s settle into the silence, and if by any chance anyone does want hands laid on them, either to receive the Holy Spirit or have the Holy Spirit strengthened in them, I’d encourage you to feel free to come up to the front, and I and others here will lay hands on you and pray for you.